1. The Field of the Invention
This invention relates to systems, methods and apparatus for partitioning spaces with tiles, or otherwise treating existing structures with tiles.
2. Background and Relevant Art
The fields related to architectural design typically involve creative application of materials and structures in a given space with both aesthetic and functional considerations. In this regard, one particular area of interest in architectural design relates to partitioning spaces, such as materials and apparatus for use as one or more wall, ceiling, or floor structures, and/or treatments regarding the same. Often, the considerations made in partitioning or decorating a given space depend on the available materials, and associated costs. For example, conventional building materials used in structural partitions or treatments include drywall, fabrics, metals, wood, glass, and/or various masonry.
Recent developments in architectural design, however, now include the use of resin materials as building materials. Some common resin materials used as building materials now include materials such as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene or “ABS”, polyvinyl chloride or “PVC”; polyacrylate materials such as poly(methyl methacrylate) or “PMMA” (also known as acrylic); polyester or copolyester based materials such as poly(ethylene terephthalate), “PET,” either modified or unmodified with 1 to 99 mole percent of a diol or combination of diols, such as ethylene glycol, neopentyl glycol or cyclohexanedimethanol, or “PETG” and “PCTG”; as well as polycarbonate resin based materials, acrylic, and any combinations thereof.
In general, resin materials can provide a number of advantages over conventional building materials such as drywall, glass, etc. in terms of cost (e.g., compared with glass) as well as formability and reuse. At the outset, for example, resin materials tend to be far less expensive in most applications than materials such as glass or the like, where certain structural, optical, and aesthetic characteristics are desired. In addition, resin materials tend to be far more flexible in terms of manufacture and assembly, since resin materials can also be bent, molded, colored, shaped, cut and modified many different ways, and still reused in place of conventional materials at a later point much more easily than conventional counterparts.
Notwithstanding such advantages, however, designers have in the past tended to use resin materials primarily as decorative replacements for conventional structures such as doors, panels, or windows. For example, rather than using a metal or wooden door, the designer might implement a resin panel door in place thereof, or might even implement a resin treatment to the door. In other cases, the designer might replace a given window with a resin panel that includes one or more decorative objects. In cases where a rigid structure may be less useful, however, such as with a curtain or accordion-style partition, resin materials have not typically been used as replacement materials. This may be because resin materials in the architectural design fields tend to be manufactured and implemented primarily as large, rigid panels, which may not be readily suited for such flexible partitioning.
Nevertheless, flexible partitioning such as this is becoming more important, particularly in many newer designs where space considerations are a premium. (In some such spaces, even slidable panels may be too inflexible and space consuming, whether for receiving the given panels from one area to the next, or potentially due to the room taken up by the ceiling and/or floor track hardware.) Despite this increased importance, there has been little change in design of such collapsible/variable partitions, as well as change in materials using such partitions. Rather, collapsible or variable partitions tend to rely on conventional curtains or accordion-style partitions, which, in turn, rely on textile-based materials, or materials/structures that have not heretofore lent themselves to using decorative resin-based materials.
In addition, such collapsible/variable structures tend to provide an all or nothing approach in terms of partitioning a space for light and sound. There are other types of variable partitions that might variably allow some pass through of light and/or sound without having to be removed, such as hanging blinds that are rotated in one direction or another, or even hanging materials such as beads. Structures such as these, however, tend to be either too freely rotatable along a vertical line of components/materials, or constrained so that each line of component/material rotates in precisely the same alignment as all of the other vertical lines of component/material in the partition. Thus, such structures tend to be either too variable, or not variable enough for a wide range of decorative and/or structural applications.
Accordingly, there are a number of disadvantages in present partitions that can be addressed, particularly where the needs for both variability and uniformity in presentation and function may be desired at the same time as dealing with a constrained space.